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Chapter Text

Percy had been alive when they reached St. Mungo's. Had been with his sharp angles and feeble breaths but he had been alive. Alive but shabby and without the sharp outfits he purchased as soon as he could and neatly styled hair to seem professional but effortless.

Bill hadn’t known what to do when he saw his little brother on the apartment floor. Percy had been almost entirely unrecognisable and undeniably cursed even through the fickle magic he still emanated.

Bill had been afraid to touch Percy in case it would take his last energy. What if even the smallest shift in the air would take Percy’s life? He seemed fragile enough for that too happen.

"Do something!" Charlie had demanded in a scream that sent Hermes flying away from Percy momentarily. "You're the curse breaker, so do something!"

Bill looked down at Percy. He was filthy and had both owl excrements on his trousers and drool down his chin and Bill was at a lost about how to help him.

“I don't know. I can't. It's not anything that I know of.”

Bill was panicking and he had no idea how it got so bad and how he could have sent a howler for Percy not visiting Fred when Percy was going through whatever this was. Fred, Bill thought, he’s at St. Mungo’s. Percy needs to go there.

“St. Mungo's! He needs to go to St. Mungo's, and then I can call the team. They'll come if I call for them. Or-or St. Mungo’s can have the curse team who checked out Fred do something."

“Okay,” Charlie said in an exhale. “We can do that.”

Bill nodded and looked for a fireplace that was connected to the Floo Network. There was none and Bill sprinted back to Charlie who had Percy in his arms. None of them said anything as they ran out of the door to the public Floo that they had used to get to Percy’s apartment.

The distance was short, but it felt like it was towns away as they ran with Hermes following them. Bill wasn’t sure how much money he threw before the brothers went to St. Mungo’s without Percy’s feathered companion.

"Bill," Charlie hissed out just as they ran to the reception desk.

Bill turned around and saw Charlie standing still and was just looking down at Percy. Bill wanted to shout at his brother to move but he stopped himself and walked over to Charlie with long steps.

Bill felt like his heart stopped when Percy inhaled even more shallowly than he had before before letting out a last exhale shuttering exhale. The whole world compressed itself into Percy’s still chest and time stopped.

Then it started again with a vengeance. Healers talking, visitors laughing, patients crying, and Charlie taking in enough shaken breathes for him and Percy. Bill couldn't think. He was on a mission, and he didn't register what he was doing until Percy was in his own arms and he ran past the reception desk to the healers he saw walking through a door with a relaxed stroll.

“Help!” he yelled. “He’s dead. Help!”

The healers stopped strolling and ran to Bill and suddenly Percy was out of Bill’s arms and pulled away from his sight.

Bill didn’t notice that he was barely breathing himself until an unfamiliar woman made him sit down and follow her breathes but his chest was too tight for any inhales and the lack of air made his head spin even more than it did before.

She handed him a tissue and he dried his face with jagged movements and only then realised that he was sobbing.

The fog lifted slightly, and Bill asked her in a strained voice, “What’s happening?”

Her eyes were kind and the crow’s feet made her blue eyes seem even softer. “The healers are doing what they can and then you can see him.”

“Will he be okay?” Bill asked. His voice had broken over a decade ago, but he felt like the small boy he had once been.

She hesitated for only a moment. “He’s in the best hands in all of Britain.”

Bill didn’t understand but he nodded anyway. She seemed to know that he needed more and stayed until the world had colour once more and Bill looked around the room. He was in a strange but small room. There was a blackboard and a white table with pale green chairs and a painting of what Bill assumed was a mermaid, but the non-fish part looked far more human and attractive than the mermaids at Hogwarts. Bill had no idea how he ended up here or where Charlie was.

“Where’s my brother?” Bill’s voice was sore and thick with phlegm.

“He’s still being treated. The healers are doing the best they can.

Bill felt a chill through his body until he realised that she was talking about Percy.

“Charlie, where’s Charlie?”

The woman’s eyebrows furrowed for a little over a second before they lifted and her whole face turned into a pleasant expression once more. “Are you talking about the man that you arrived with? The one who was carrying the thin redhaired man?” She didn’t wait for any kind of verbal or nonverbal answer. “He’s sitting in a patient room a little down the hall. He needed a few calming draghts.”

She turned around and brought a small bottle closer to Bill.

“Here’s one for you too. I tried to give it to you before.”

Bill should ask about strange blue potions from strange people, but he was too worn-down to even question if it was a calming draught or poison.

Bill quickly felt calm enough to be embarrassed but choose to hid it the best that he could with asking another more urgent question.

“Can I see Charlie now?”

“I’ll check.”

The woman was away for only a minute before she came back and guided Bill to the room on shaky legs.

Charlie looked terrible. His cheeks were bright red and he was keeping a painfully tight grip on an identical bottle to the one Bill had consumed until he heard Bill’s steps.

Charlie almost threw the bottle as he needed both arms to pull Bill towards him and sob into his shoulder. Bill couldn’t remember Charlie sobbing like this since Percy had been born and Charlie had decided that he needed to be strong now that he had his own little brother.

However Bill had two more years to learn to be a big brother than Charlie and he knew exactly how to best make even someone as beefy as Charlie feel protected.

Chapter Text

Bill was thankful for Charlie when a serious-looking man came into the room with healer robes on almost an entire hour later.

"We did what we could," the healer started, and Bill tightened his arms around Charlie. He already knew what the rest of that sentence would be, but he couldn’t let himself believe it until the healer continued. "But he was too far gone."

"He's dead?" Charlie asked in a subdued voice. It was almost inaudible through Bill’s shoulder.

"Yes."

Words had never hurt more. It had been devastating when he had been told that Fred died but Bill had felt too many emotions at once to really feel the sorrow. There had been a great relief that the rest of his family had been alive and when that feeling lessened so had every other emotion until it felt like everything he felt had been hidden in a black hole of nothingness.

Now there was only sorrow, confusion, and guilt.

"Do you want to see him?"

Neither Bill nor Charlie answered. They simply stood up and walked with the healer out of the room.

Percy looked better in that he was clean in clean clothes. Someone had brushed his hair but there was simply not enough of it to cushion his head as it had when someone brushed it out when he was a child. The twins had teased Percy for over a month when they learned about Little Orphan Annie and how Percy looked like her when anyone brushed his curls out.

"You can touch him," the healer said. "The curse was gone when we reached the room."

Bill didn't want to think about the implications of the curse disappearing as Percy himself did. He didn’t want to wonder if they even used a Renervate spell on Percy, but he did wonder just as he wondered how he could hadn’t used one himself in the middle of the panic.

Bill waved his wand without asking or waiting for permission, and there was nothing. Neither a curse nor a life force.

Bill had never checked a still person like that, but it couldn't be right that there were simply no signs of the person who had lived in there. He briefly wondered if he would have felt anything if he had checked Fred. Maybe it would have saved everyone from the horrors of 15 days ago and now that everything was getting better, he had failed another brother.

Charlie took Percy’s hand and started to rub warmth into it. Percy’s hand was so thin that it looked like even the breeze could break his bones and Bill wanted Charlie to stop touching Percy like that.

He instead looked away and tried to pretend that he was anywhere other than here.

"He looks like Uncle Gideon," Charlie said and pulled Bill out of his thoughts right before he could get lost in his thoughts.

Bill looked over at Percy again. He didn't look anything like either of their mother’s brothers had in the end. Both men had died in glory and looked healthy but pale at the funeral. Bill decided that Charlie must have been too young to remember their uncles right even though Charlie had been around 9 when they died. Even if Charlie said Gideon and not Fabian who Bill remembered not being able to see even as the last Prewetts were laid to rest. It had been either spring or summer and Bill couldn’t remember exactly how heavily pregnant that his mum had been with Ginny, but Bill remembered being 11 and wondering why Fabian never got the same funeral rites as Gideon had gotten.

Bill had barely gotten any answers when he heard his parents talking about his two uncles shortly before the funerals and there had been a reason why no one, not even his mother, had been allowed to see Fabian in death. Bill knew now that fights often led to corpses that no one, but especially children nor pregnant women, should see. Truth be told, he and his siblings should probably not have been allowed to see Gideon either even after they had cleaned off his headwound and spelled a flush into his cheeks. It had been too red, and Percy had cried that Uncle Gideon had looked like he had had a fever. Percy must still have been 4 since Ginny hadn’t been born yet but both his parents had seemed annoyed that Percy had disturbed both them and he had made the twins cry when they too decided that their uncle had looked sick, and then Ron had cried because most of his siblings did.

Bill forced himself to look closely at the current Percy's still body. He looked sick and somehow resembled both a small child and an old man. His hair was thin and his curls were flat on his forehead. He didn’t even look like a real person but instead a caricature of one.

He was as young as both mum's brothers had been, but he looked so frail, and he had been so light in Bill’s arms. It should not be possibly to lose that amount of weight in less than a week. They hadn't even needed a lightening spell and Bill had been able to carry Percy easily.

Maybe the Prewett family had been cursed decades ago. Percy was the only one to look like one besides the red hair that they all had and now he died around the same age as their uncles. His life had barely started and now it was snuffed out.

Had he even known that Charlie and Bill had looked for him? Bill hoped he either didn't register anything or he at least hadn’t known why they had broken into his apartment.

Bill couldn’t shake off the feeling that this was somehow entirely his fault. He looked away once more to pretend that his heart didn’t feel like a black hole in his chest.

Bill walked into Fred's room the same way he had walked onto the Hogwarts battlegrounds what felt like a lifetime ago. Heavy steps and a ridged back in an attempt to seem braver than he was. Charlie was glued to Percy several floors down and Bill knew that they needed to inform his family before he lost all will to ever break their hearts and let the healers do his job.

"Where's Percy?" Bill was asked as soon as he opened Fred’s door, and his shoulders fell momentarily before they rose up almost to his ears again. He closed the door shakenly before he forced himself to look at his mother.

"Mum, he-" Bill said but was interrupted before he found any more words to utter. None seemed to capture the right meaning and all words were too hard at that moment.

"I thought you and Charlie was collecting him to visit poor Fred."

'Poor Fred' looked like he would prefer to not be a part of this conversation.

"We were- we did," Bill said when he found no other words.

"Well, where is he now then? Unless he's hiding in some other patient’s room."

Bill forced down his sob and he hoped that he didn’t sound strangled.

"Percy... he-he is here."

"Where 'here'?" Their mother looked entirely impatient, but Fred had a frightened look in his eyes when Bill spared him a glance.

"Come, mum. I'll show you," Bill uttered in a kind but cautious voice.

"He can come here. Fred has barely been out of bed and Percy has been too busy to see any of us."

"Just come, mum," Bill said. It was still far more patient and without any of the edges as he would have used on his siblings, but his mum still huffed up to protest when Fred put a hand on her arm.

"Go."

She exhaled some of the ire but still walked as she had done before the battle with her own confidence and bravery shining through and ready to battle anyone in her way. Bill chose to simply be glad that she was following him silently through the hallways instead of confronting how she was thinking the worst of Percy who was lying dead just like Bill had through of the worst of him too as he was laying close to it on the cold apartment floor.

Chapter Text

Bill heard his mother scream as soon as he had ushered her through the door. It was animalistic and awoke some primal part of him that he hadn’t known that he had before the battle. The hairs on his arms stood up and every instinct wanted him to run as fast as he could. About half wanted him to run to his family’s aid and the other part wanted him to run, run, run far away but instead he stood frozen in the hallway.

Several healers came running and two stayed in the room. Bill could hear them trying to calm his mother down with soft and pleading voices, but he couldn’t hear their words through his mother’s screams.

The door smacked close after a few moments, and everything quieted down until all Bill could hear was the blood rushing through his ears. It sounded like the sea and Bill saw how the floor moved with the waves.

People walked through the hallway, but they all felt unreal in the same sense as some ghosts did. They were there but untouchable and eerily quiet without any footsteps or breathing. He felt like a ghost too, but the stares burned into his skin and pulled him deeper into the sea.

A touch brought him back to the surface so quickly that it almsot hurt and it took him a moment to register the missing ear and a moment longer to remember that this was St. Mungo’s and not Hogwarts.

“What are you doing here? Was that mum?” George asked. His eyes were wide and so confused that Bill’s old habits as an older brother won over his galloping heart. He could still feel the cold sweat moving over his back, but he did a few deep breaths before he answered with a calm voice.

“Yes, mum’s in there but she’s fine. Everything will be fine.”

Bill didn’t think that George really took in his words, but Bill saw Ron and Ginny give each other a look a few steps away from them.

“Okay? Why is she screaming?” George looked calmer but confused until his face paled so quickly that he had to take a step away on faltered legs. “Is it Fred?”

Ginny and Ron looked at both Bill and George with sharp stares at that.

“No, Fred’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with him,” Bill hurried out.

George gave a few quick but weak nods at that. Bill saw Ginny push herself away from Ron so harshly that he almost bumped his head on the wall but she gave him no time to protest before she was standing beside George.

“Well, what is it then? Is it Charlie? Dad?”

“No, no, they’re both fine.”

Well, Bill thought, Charlie is fine physically.

“What is it then?” Ron asked as he pushed himself between Ginny and George. He only pushed Ginny slightly more than necessary.

Bill swallowed the spit that found its way into his mouth. He had no idea what to say or how to soften the blow in the middle of a hallway, and he was ready to face the full force of his siblings when a healer walked out of Percy’s room.

Bill had always thought that an angel would look like his wife even before he had met Fleur, but he had never felt more saved than he did when he saw a greying, middle-aged man with bags under his eyes that seemed big enough to carry the emotional weight of what Bill wanted the man to do.

“You can’t all go in there right now,” the man said neither kindly nor unkindly. He just sounded exhausted, and Bill didn’t feel an ounce of guilt when he spoke.

“That’s okay, but can you tell my siblings and I what has happened and why our mum was screaming?”

The healer gave Bill a single look of slightly narrowed eyes and a slight tilt to his head but the look disappeared quickly and he waved at them to follow him.

“Can you tell our last brother too?” Bill felt and sounded like a small child, but he almost didn’t care what his siblings would think of him for throwing this responsibility away as quickly as he could.

The healer blinked once, looked at all the redhaired men and Ginny, gave a slight nod, and asked in a tone that signalled that he already knew the answer, “Who is this last brother?”

The man didn’t even react when they told him. He simply turned around to a colleague that was trying to get through and told her where he was going and then they were moving up the floors to Fred’s room.

Ginny walked to Bill's side on the way and he was afraid that she would ask something of him that he wasn’t prepared for, but she simply took his hand and clung to it. Bill only felt the weight of his guilt then for not having the strength to tell his siblings himself and spare them from this trip.

Fred almost jumped out of the bed when he saw most of his family walking in with grim faces and a healer, but he stayed in bed as George moved to his bedside and held his forearm instead of hand in a firm grip.

Bill didn’t register the healer's words themselves but rather the reactions of his siblings.

Ginny lost most of the colour in her face until only her freckles and hair seemed to have any colour, Ron looked similar but with a nauseated sheen, and both George and Fred had a guilty pallor that took away a lot of the colour that they had gotten in the last week and a half.

The healer himself was unbothered but had taken a far more kind approach than before and he offered tissues to Ron when the tears won over his stubbornness. Ginny lost the fight immediately after that but refused to let go of Bill’s hand and dried her eyes in Bill’s shoulder. Bill didn’t feel like he was in his body anymore, but he found the strength to walk in front of her and fold his free arm around her back.

Bill vaguely wondered where Harry and Hermione were as they had been glued to Ron’s and sometimes Ginny’s side despite Hermione occasionally talking about her parents and her plans to track them down when Fred's investigation would be over.

“Do you have any questions?” The healer asked when the had finished his explanation.

Fred seemed to want to ask something, but George took the lead when only sobs came out, “What happened? How did he-.”

George cut himself off with a sob and tightened his grip around Fred’s arm even further, but Fred didn’t seem to mind.

“We’re not sure. Like I said, we suspect a curse, but all traces were gone when we examined him.”

Bill forced down his reaction to the memory of how empty Percy had been.

The healer gave them all a once over before he continued, “However, the Ministry is informed, and they have started an investigation and they will do everything that they can to find out what happened and to punish anyone responsible for this.”

Bill furrowed his eyebrows at that. Percy had no signs of what happened to turn him into what he had become but perhaps the Aurors would interrogate Percy’s colleagues and whoever else he had communicated with in the last two weeks or maybe even before the battle. Bill just hoped that they would soon know what happened to Percy now that it looked like they would never know how Fred came back to them. 

Bill had only finsihed that throught when the door opened once more and a witch and a wizard walked through in brown trench coats.

“Hello,” the healer said less kindly and more formally than he had talked to any of the Weasleys. “You can’t just open patient doors.”

“We’re sorry about that,” the witch said. She had kind brown eyes and sandy brown hair that made her look warm and trustworthy.

“Yes, very,” the wizard agreed in a dismissive tone. He looked similar to the witch with his long face and huge eyes, almost like they were siblings, but his hair was a shade darker, and his brown eyes looked serious and unforgiving. “We’re here to ask a few questions about your involvement with Percy Weasley.”

Bill only noticed the badges then.

Chapter Text

“Did you keep in contact with your brother after you moved away from home?”

Bill fiddled with his sleeve. There was a hole and Bill already knew what Fleur would say about him walking around with one and what his mother would call Fleur if she heard her talk about the presentation of clothes.

“Mr. Weasley, do you understand the question?” Bill looked up at the female Auror and her soft expression. It was the only warm sight in the entire room. They had apparated to this place that was neither the hospital nor the Aurors’ headquarters right before both Aurors had introduced themselves as Auror Johnson.

“Yes, I understand. We did send letters and my parents and most of my siblings visited me when Percy was still at home.”

“Hmm,” the male Auror hummed. “And would you say that you kept in regular contact?”

Bill wanted to keep lying to himself, but he forced himself to utter the painful truth. “No.” Bill wanted to point out that Percy could have sent more letters too or his letters could have had more open questions. Bill also wanted to explain the two Aurors how most of Percy’s questions could be answered with a simple ‘Yes, I’m fine’ or ‘No, I can’t go into detail about my job but, yes, it is still very interesting’ and that was the only reason why Percy’s letters were maybe a bit longer than his.

But mostly Bill wanted someone to not have him say anything but still tell him that it was okay and understandable that he had been young and busy. Fleur knew some but not everything Bill had felt when he arrived in Egypt and had 6 siblings and a pair of parents who wanted constant letters, but he had been busy with his new and interesting job and then suddenly he looked back and he hadn’t sent a letter to anyone but his parents in the last few months.

“Did the contact stop?” The male Auror asked.

Bill suspected that the Auror already knew the answer. “Yes, a few years ago. Percy had a fight with our father and I’m not sure what happened but, yes, we all lost touch with him.”

Bill looked up at the Auror. The man didn’t show any of his feelings on the matter, but Bill still felt judged.

“But you all fought together in the battle?”

Bill nodded.

“I need verbal confirmation.”

“Yes, we all fought. Including Percy.”

“And everything was well with all your family members after that?”

“Fred died, or we thought he died.”

“Ah yes,” the Auror didn’t look surprised, and he definitely had already known that fact. “So, was there no animosity between you all?”

Bill felt like a stunning spell had hit him and he sat back rigidly in his chair. “What are you implying?”

The Auror titled his head. “I’m simply asking questions.”

“Everyone was trying their best.”

“I’m sure, but was there any fights?”

“No,” Bill answered but as he thought back, he wasn’t so sure. “I don’t think so.”

“Many families fight. Especially after such a tragedy.”

“I didn’t hear any fights,” Bill said as firmly as he dared to be.

The rest of the questions continued the same with the male Auror vaguely blaming Bill while the female Auror made few but compassionate comments. Eventually the male Auror left the room and Bill simply sat with the female Auror. She asked him how he was and if there was anything that he wanted to talk about but there was none, and Bill apparated straight to the Burrow instead of St. Mungo’s or home as soon as the male Auror came back and gave his permission.

It could only have been some kind of investigation technique, but Bill didn’t know exactly what it was supposed to do.

Bill saw his father crying as soon as he arrived, and Ginny arrived soon after Bill did.

Bill looked around the room and saw that all his siblings except Charlie and Fred as there and his mother must still be at St. Mungo’s. Ginny ran straight for their father who tried to stop crying next to Ron, Hermione and Harry.

Fleur walked over to Bill when she saw him, and he almost started crying by her touch when the fireplace gave a green gleam, and a young brown-haired man ran out of it with an owl swaddled in a jacket so only the head was visible.

"You're here? Good, I found Hermes in the streets, and he's a right mess - skinny, dirty and distraught, and I thought 'Percy wouldn't let that happen' so I went to his apartment and there was Aurors everywhere and no one would tell me what happened!"

Bill was vaguely impressed by this man saying all this before taking hurried breathes as he waited for an answer.

Charlie took a step towards the man.

"Oliver? Where did you even find Hermes?"

Bill only registered then that it was Hermes, and this Oliver knew the owl by name. The name sounded familiar, and Bill thought that that he should probably know who he was as a former prefect and headboy but it was around a decade ago and there had been hundreds of children in just Gryffindor alone.

"In the streets, but Percy is not in his apartment, and it looks like it has been robbed from the little I could see before I was asked to leave. We need to find him!"

"Percy's... gone," Bill said softly.

Oliver turned his gaze towards Bill and nodded with harsh and hurried movements. "Yes, yes, he is, and we need to find him. He must be in trouble."

"No, he's at St. Mungo’s and he's-" Bill couldn't say that last word so he just let the sentence fall into nothing.

"St. Mungo's? Was there an attack? Is he sick? It must have been days. Why haven't anyone taken care of Hermes? He's like Percy’s child."

Bill didn't know about an owl being anyone's child but that wasn't important right now.

"He was sick or cursed."

Oliver leaned on the fireplace with one arm and used the other to press Hermes towards his body.

"Well, good thing he's getting treated then.” Oliver turned his gaze to Charlie. “Do you think that I can smuggle Hermes in there to Percy?"

Oliver’s eyes widened with another idea before he turned to George. “You can help me smuggle him.”

"No," Bill answered shortly and with a great deal of confusion about the whole situation.

"You're right. It's probably better to put some meat on those bird bones first anyway. Percy would probably just about die if he saw Hermes like this."

Every human other than Oliver flinched at his words. Oliver just kept leaning and looked down at Hermes.

"So, when will Percy be out then? I can fatten Hermes up just fine, but a timeline would be nice."

"He's not," Charlie said after an awkward amount if silence.

Oliver looked up at them again. "What?"

"He's not getting out."

Oliver's accent seemed to get stronger the longer the conversation was. "That's a weird joke."

No one answered him. Bill himself didn't know what to say and he was both relieved and disappointed when Oliver talked again.

"You make it sound like he died."

No one answered him.

Oliver seemed to silently plead with them before he talked again. "But he's not. Right?"

"I'm sorry," someone said. It could be Bill for all he knew.

"That's... no I won't believe it. He can't be."

No one answered him and he pressed Hermes into his body a little tighter. Hermes would screech if someone stroked him even slightly wrong, but he seemed to accept everything that Oliver did.

“When will he be here then?”

Several seconds passed before Bill said as loudly as he could, “We’re not sure. St. Mungo’s and the Aurors never said.”

As loudly as he could was closer to a whisper than anything else, but Oliver seemed to have heard everything.

Oliver looked down at Hermes and loosened his grip a little. “Okay, then Hermes can stay here, I guess.” Oliver’s eyebrows seemed to try to meet in the middle and his mouth turned sharply down.

“Yes, of course,” Bill heard his father say. Bill looked over at his father and saw that he had stopped crying, but his cheeks were still bright red.

Oliver hiccupped once before he looked up with wide and hopeful eyes. “Or-or I could take him.”

No one protested. Hermes was a fine bird but Bill himself was too exhausted and full of emotions to even think of taking care of more than he already had to.

“Okay, I’ll take him and then you can write to me when Percy is – um – released.”

Bill didn’t hear an answer, but someone must have nodded as Oliver nodded back and continued, “I’ll just go then and bring Hermes back when Percy is here.”

There was a soft noise of shoes being pulled over the floor as Bill’s father pulled himself up straighter. “No, we will have enough to deal with at that time. Hermes can come when everything’s done.”

“No!” Oliver protested loudly. Bill turned his head to him just as Hermes relaxed again after hearing that sharp tone.

Bill realised where he had heard about Oliver before, and he knew that Oliver had shared a dorm room with Percy, played with most of Bill’s siblings and at least knew of Ginny but Oliver was complicating a private family matter. He had no right to protest where Percy’s owl should be when the time would come for Percy to be brought home.

"Hermes needs to see Percy," Oliver argued.

"I won't let an owl have time alone with my son,” Bill’s father spat.  

Oliver looked at him with furrowed brows. "You can still be there, but Hermes needs to know what has happened to Percy."

"Look, son, Hermes is a fine owl, but we need all the time that we can to spend with Percy when we're allowed again."

"Hermes need to see Percy. Percy wanted it."

"How do you know anything of what Percy wanted?" Ginny snarled.

Oliver gave her a bemused look. "6th year. People were getting petrified, and Percy made me promise to let Hermes see him if it happened to him. Especially if he would die." Oliver's voice broke at the last word, but he continued, "So Hermes need to see Percy know. So, Hermes knows that Percy hasn't abandoned him, and Hermes can grieve."

“I’m not prioritising an owl over my son.”

Oliver’s eyes burned with more emotions than Bill could separate from each other. “What about prioritising your son over your feelings for once.”

“Out! Leave!”

It was only when Oliver left that Bill realised that he had taken Hermes with him without any food nor any other things an owl would need.

Chapter Text

Bill hadn’t thought about it, but no one had informed Fred about anything, and Fred was livid as he stalked around the room.

“What do you mean he died?” Fred raged. Even George seemed at a lost for words to calm or explain everything to Fred.

“He can’t be gone,” Fred continued and stomped around the room.

Bill didn’t feel 27-years-old at that moment but somehow both ancient and too young to be out of the house without a parent present. Technically he had two parents present in St. Mungo’s, but his mother had cried too much to say a word after they had arrived in Fred’s room and his father had taken her outside the room almost 40 minutes ago and Bill doubted that they would be back. It was only 9 in the morning but Bill was already for the day to be over.

Bill wished that he hadn’t declined Fleur’s offer to go with him. Fleur and his mother had a much better relationship now than they used to have but he hadn’t known how she would have reacted to Fleur being present when telling Fred what they knew about Percy. Especially when Bill, George and their parents were the only ones sent to tell Fred while the younger siblings were spared, and Charlie was left to support them with their grief. Bill, Charlie and their parents knew that all his siblings were legal adults, but they would probably always be viewed far younger in all their eyes.

The healers had offered to be in the room when they told Fred about Percy, but his mother had insisted that this was a family matter right before they had walked in. Bill tried not to feel bitter about her declining help and then left Bill and George to inform Fred only minutes later.

 “I’ve been stuck here being useless and you’re not even telling me how he died,” Fred spat at the door with in impressively harsh look in his eyes, and Bill couldn’t decide if Fred was ignorant to how everyone else felt every time he said the d-word or if Fred knew and liked how they all acted like most did about the Dark Lord’s name in the last 10 years.

“We’ve told you, Fred, we don’t know,” Bill answered, and he sounded almost as drained as he felt.

“Well, you bloody well should find out while I find a way to make the healers get off my back.”

“Please, don’t sneak out of St. Mungo’s,” Bill breathed out. Fred had already tried a few days ago

“I do what I bloody well please,” Fred spat. No one commented on how he probably could have snuck out the day before when everyone else left after Percy was brought in and Fred was currently at least nearly as strong as he had been before the battle.

“Don’t,” Bill warned. It sounded half-hearted even though he meant it with his whole soul.

“I’ll keep the Aurors on their toes,” George promised, and Bill felt a wave of unease at those words and how much that he knew that both twins could do.

“The Aurors,” Fred scoffed. “Yeah, they are all so great. Not like there had been multiple not so secret orders to do their bloody job.”

Bill felt ready to cry from both grief and frustration.

“They even came yesterday and asked all kinds of questions. They seemed ready to take me off to a lair and stuff me full of truth potions if it wasn’t for the sweet little healers outside of the room. At least the healers are good for something.”

“Thank you for that, Mr. Weasley,” a female voice interrupted. Bill turned around and saw a short, Indian woman with several potions on a tray. Her thick braid moved on her back with her steps and brushed just under her waist.

“You’re welcome, Saanvi,” Fred said with barely a glance at her.

She gave a quick hum and somehow got Fred to sit on his bed with only a snap of her fingers and a quick point to it. She looked to be a little younger than their mother and seemed to be able to command a room even better than she did on even her best days. Her height should have been an hinderance, but she didn’t let the fact that she was only as tall standing as Fred was sitting stopping her from getting what she wanted.

She did a series of spells so quickly that Bill couldn’t be sure what mumbled words belonged to what motions.

She gave a single potion to Fred and kept the rest on her tray.

“You’re in great health, Mr. Weasley,” she commented without any space for anything else before she put a hand on Fred’s shoulder and gave him and then George and Bill an emphatic look.

“Have you had an informative chat? Is everything out in the open now?”

Bill gave a curt nod.

“Good.” She sighed and it didn’t take much to see how much the next words pained her. “One of the Aurors who talked to you yesterday are right outside the door, Mr Weasley. They have news about your late brother.”

Fred’s face fell at those words. He had tried to seem almost jovial with the healer but now he just looked scared.

“I can tell them to come back later,” she said full of conviction.

Fred shook his head and looked down at his knees. “No, I want to know everything, and it might as well be now.”

The healer gave him an intense look that made Fred look back up at her again.

“Really, Saanvi, just let them in.”

She pressed her lips together and uttered a soft “okay,” before she spoke clearly for everyone to hear. “I will be in the room to observe Fred and the situation unless you tell me to leave.”

Fred sent her a soft smile as she walked towards the door and George wasted no time moving near Fred. Bill didn’t know what to do, but George sent him a helpless look at Bill quickly moved near his brothers, so they sat hip to hip on the side of the bed with George sitting almost at the headboard and Bill at the foot of the bed.

The male Auror who was a part of Bill’s investigation came through the door. He looked less rigid than he did the day before, but he still radiated professionalism.

“I’m sorry to see you all in these circumstances. We weren’t sure how much to tell you yesterday, but we’ve figured out what happened to your brother.”

Bill wasn’t sure if the pause was simply a pause or if they were expected to answer. George seemed to feel the same as he gave an uncertain “okay”.

“We had to be suspicious about everyone present in in your brother’s life and I’m sorry how that must have felt.”

Bill wasn’t entirely sure how sorry the Auror was. No one had seemed sorry when they had kicked everyone out of their homes for hours while they searched everything. Fleur hadn’t complained but Bill saw how she immediately had checked all the furniture, kitchen cupboards, and her clothes as soon as they had left and Bill imagined that his mother hadn’t taken it any better.

“But,” the Auror said and brought Bill’s attention back to the current conversation. “We are sure about what happened now.”

Fred took a hold of Bill’s hand and a quick glance informed Bill that he had taken a hold of George’s hand too.

"The case has been ruled as a suicide."

Bill felt like all his limbs and head got impossibly heavier at those words and he only vaguely felt Fred tighten his grip on his hand.

"Suicide? Percy?" George asked outraged. Bill also felt a outraged that someone would even consider someone as proud as Percy choosing to do something like that.

"Yes, suicide. At first, we thought that it was either foul play or a mishap of dangerous spells and potions, but-."

Bill felt his blood moving into his cheeks and hands. Percy would never be that careless.

"- we've found evidence of Mr. Weasley cancelling his newspaper subscriptions and giving up his apartment which suggest that he knew that he about his possible passing beforehand and we found no evidence of anyone helping him.”

Knowing that Percy had send a letter to his landlord and wherever he had subscriptions was both so alike Percy and unbelievably hurtful. He had sent a letter to essentially strangers but not his own family. Bill would like to think that Percy had known that he could always write to them, but Bill couldn't remember Percy asking for anything since halfway through Bill's seventh year and even before that it had only been when the younger siblings didn't cry for attention. They had almost always cried for Bill, Charlie, their parents or all of them at once, so Percy had simply been there like Bill's books that he cherished greatly but left at the Burrow when he moved away.

The Auror looked away for a moment before he looked back at them and continued.

“We thereafter found evidence of what he did. It was a dangerous and improbable way to bring someone back from the dead.”

"What? Do you know why he did it?" Fred asked in a whisper as if the words themselves were horrible curses.

The Auror's face lost some of its stiff professionalism and gave way for soft empathy.

"We can't be certain at this time but presumably it was to bring you back. Your tests show that that was the most likely cause and we found biological evidence of you being the intended recipient in his apartment."

Everything made sense quicker than Bill could understand emotionally. He wasn't ready to face it entirely, but he could logically understand why Fred had been unable to be discharged or even leave St. Mungo’s for even just a walk before the Aurors knew more about Percy.

"His energy is in me," Fred asked in an outraged voice.

"We can't know for certain." Fred looked frightened with his widened eyes and downcast eyebrows. Bill didn't understand why at first, any hope of Percy being alive in some way if not in the afterlife already, was better than nothing, but as he reflected on it, he understood Fred more. Bill only had to live for himself and to be a role model for his siblings but the pressure of someone not only dying for you but somehow knowing what you did with your life would be a far larger pressure than any of the Weasley siblings had ever been under. The selfish part of him still had a tiny hope for it even if none of them would know for certain before it was their time in the afterlife and maybe beyond that.

“We can’t know for certain,” the Auror repeated. “But we know what Percy did entails and we’ve found no others to come back from the dead. The checks yesterday were to match you with the evidence that we found in the deceased’s apartment and at a separate location.”

"What exactly did Percy do, and what kind of evidence are you talking about?" Bill had never heard George sound meek before. Some of the professionalism found its way back into the Auror's face but there was still a gleam of empathy.

"That is classified. We'll try to find where Mr. Weasley found the information and destroy it and do the same with the evidence."

"You can't!" Fred protested loudly and let go of Bill’s hand, but George refused to give up his grip when Fred tried to do the same to him. "What if there's a way to reverse whatever he did? Then he'll never come back."

The Auror took a deep breath, but it seemed to be more to have time to figure out an answer than annoyance, but there was still a hint of annoyance at his next words. "He'll never come back even with another ritual. The castings and potions he used are bordering on dark magic as it is, and his body wouldn't be able to house a living being anymore."

"So that's just it? Gone forever and you won't do anything."

"That is usually the way with passings."

"Yeah usually, but I'm here, aren't I?"

The Aurors mouth fell into a flat line for several moments before answering. "Yes, but you are an unusual case. There have been very few reports of success even when this ritual was more easily found and not illegal."

"Illegal?" It took Bill a moment to realise that it was him who had shouted that word. Bill simply couldn't connect Percy with anything illegal. Percy had barely been willing to break any rules.

"Yes, illegal. We can't pursue legal actions, but we are working on finding the source. It's a slow process even under optimal circumstances."

“You’re making it sound like he was a criminal,” Bill said. He felt how his nose wrinkled with disgust, but it still couldn’t possibly show how vile the truly felt the words had been.

“Technically he is. It’s illegal to take any lives, even your own.”

Bill had forgotten but it was true. It wasn’t illegal to attempt to take one’s own life, but it had been illegal for decades to successfully take one’s own life in order for law enforcement to intervene if suicide was suspected.

“Okay, so Percy’s a criminal but why can’t he just come back if I could? I don’t understand,” Fred said with a whole castle worth of emotions. Bill could only send his brother a single glance because he was ready to fall apart at the pure look of devastation.

The Auror sent the healer, Saanvi, a look and she stepped forward and she explained in short words and sentences why Percy couldn’t ever come back. How his body was damaged from the curse and neglect. She had to repeat herself several times to get all 3 Weasleys to understand her and it hurt equally each time she opened her mouth even as Bill could see that she held details away from them.

Still Bill found himself to truly understand what she was saying about the neglect to Percy’s body. It was simply too painful to think about how Percy had laid on that floor in the same position for hours. The exact same position with no slight or major movements. The healers hadn't known what it was at first but an muggleborn had eventually recognised the stage 3 and 4 pressure sores on Percy's buttocks, heels, shoulder blades and the back of his head from her elderly grandmother's body who had laid in a muggle home with no levitation or detection spells to counteract such a brutal thing. The sores were full of dead tissue and there had been the start of a serious infection before Percy had passed. The healer had then explained that pressure sores were painful and that no one would be able to ignore if they could move and feel them. Bill wished that Fred hadn't asked for this information, and he wished almost as much that no one had answered. Even the healer saying that Percy had most likely been almost entirely unconscious didn't help entirely. Probably wasn't definitely and that left a too large chance of Percy feeling blinding pain all alone before enough nerves died and Percy must have been so cold. Bill could almost feel the spring breeze come in from Percy’s open window and imagine how cold it would be for someone as slight and immobile as Percy had become.

Eventually the healer stopped talking and all three Weasleys, the healer and the Auror sat in a silence so thick that it could choke Bill at any moment.

“But couldn’t you just heal him?” Fred asked weakly. He had been crying silently for several minutes and tears fell again as soon as Fred had uttered the words.

“No, he would most likely survive long even if we could bring him back even if he had been alive when we saw him.”

Bill felt a stab at those words. If only he had been quicker. If only they had checked up on their stupid but clever brother before. If only they had let Percy have the benefit of the doubt when he was evading his family and looking even more exhausted and thinner every day he had been back in their lives.

“What happens now?” Bill asked. He didn’t know exactly what he was asking about but he needed to both get away from the state of Percy’s body and know everything possible.

“My colleagues are informing your parents and the rest of your family in another room about everything that we have talked about, and you,” The Auror looked directly at Fred at that, “can be discharged today. Your late brother’s body will be released to your parents later today, and we will release your brother’s property in the coming days or weeks as we make sure that there’s no signs of his illegal acts and then we will close the investigation when we are sure to have erased any documentations of these acts.”

The Auror’s words sounded reasonable but cold. He made it sound like Percy had somehow both been a dangerous criminal and something not even alive.

The Auror left soon after and Bill was trying to find the strength to do anything but sit on Fred’s bed with his hand still laid where Fred had thrown in earlier in the conversation.

The healer came closer and checked on all of them. She didn’t offer any calming potions but instead kind words and looks.

"Is he in the afterlife?" Fred asked her in a soft voice.

The healer looked at him with sorrowful eyes. "Possibly. You and Harry Potter are the only ones to come back from it as far as I know.

Fred nodded miserably in understanding before he asked, “Is there any way to know? If Harry can come back and remember, then maybe there is some way to know.”

“I don’t know and I don’t think any of us will know what is on the other side before it’s our time,” she said and motherly squeezed Fred’s shoulder.

“And that’s not for a very long time for any of us,” Bill decided in almost a firm tone of voice.

“Yeah, Harry probably doesn’t feel like dying to check it out for us anyway,” Fred mumbled morbidly.

“Don’t ask him to do that,” George mumbled back. The twins sent each other a look full of so much more than any words could describe but Bill recognised the look of relief about having each other and sadness about everything else.

George’s whole ear was towards Bill and Fred, and Bill could almost pretend that this was any other day if it wasn’t for his own heavy heart.

Bill had never had the time to think of how Percy fit into the rest of their family. Percy was a little brother to him. Percy had been too young to ever feel like he was on an equal foot as Bill and Charlie and he had been one of only two siblings who hadn't felt like another child to raise when Bill had been a child.

Bill wished that he had been a better big brother to Percy in his seventh and Percy's first year at Hogwarts. Bill knew that he had been young and he had wanted to explore all he could before he would graduate and then explore the world outside of the rules and the supervision of his parents and teachers. Bill had always needed more time but had thought that he had a century left with all his siblings.

Bill took Fred’s hand and squeezed it with he got a questioning look.

“Come on, let’s go home. We have a letter to write to your old Quidditch captain and we have a lot to figure out with the rest of the family.”

Both Fred and George looked unsure at those words. 

"Mum and dad won't agree to that," George reasoned. 

Bill's thoughts alone felt like both mutiny and blasphemy but Bill had been passive for too long. It was too late to have an influence on Percy's life but he could try to fulfill Percy’s wishes in death. 

"We have to do what we can for our brother. Even if or rather especially if mum and dad doesn't agree." 

Both twins nodded and Bill could only hope that their fickle courage and willpower would be enough.